Facade from 'Mask of Humanity'

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I allow anyone with Illuminated to learn both Awareness and Shrouding in Ceteri. Works pretty well (mostly).

I allowed anyone with Magery or Power Talent to learn Awareness, as long as they had a plausible teacher or a period in their background where they had independently come to the realization that the world that most people knew was not all there was and developed the ability to look beyond the surface.

That meant that Lacoste, for example, was very good at Awareness from having been a homicide detective with an instinct for the occult who learned that many crimes were connected to hidden forces, but Teddy Smith didn't have it, as he learned his supernatural abilities in another world without a Facade or any attempt by the inhabitants to conceal paranormal abilities.

I didn't use Illuminated when the characters were created, but if I had, I'm not sure how it would have worked. All the PCs have supernatural gifts, but while each of them started play knowing about the occult and with useful connections with all sorts of occultists, most of them had no special knowledge about aspects of the supernatural outside their particular gifts. Specifically, while three of them were studying Hermetic magic at the start of play, they specifically hadn't used it for anything yet. Only 'Nonc' Morel had any real experience with using ritual magic on Earth, under adventuring conditions.

So I judged that none of them were familiar enough with manipulating the forces behind the Facade to be able to use it to veil themselves, as in Shrouding. In retrospect, 'Nonc' Morel definitely should have been and probably should have had a high level in Shrouding. As he has the most unspent points of all the PCs, I don't mind having the player allocate some of them to the Shrouding skill and saying he had it all along, as he already used the ritual equivalent several times during the adventure (and it's plausible that he simply felt that a pre-prepared Charm with a very effective ritual of that sort was more reliable than using Shrouding on the fly).

As for the other PCs, they shall be permitted to start exploring how to manipulate the Facade, if they so desire, and spend points on Shrouding, though they should start out with only 1 point. Except possibly Alice Talbot, as she technically has an in-setting justification for learning skills quickly with learned points.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I do this too in my games - extra points for doing extra stuff. Nice to see others do the same.

I'm very inclined to give substantial point bonuses for choosing to play out Disadvantages in a way that makes for better dramatic stories. For example, heroic PCs who connect with NPCs and make rescuing them a specific goal, rather than just stopping the villains, will receive bonuses for that. Also, finding plausible in-setting reasons for why they are going to do something extremely cinematic and risky might be good for a bonus for accomplishing stuff not strictly part of their jobs, but definitely goals their characters should have.

In general, their characters deciding to personally board the Aqueronte without support, rather than using their Patron and positions to coordinate a large-scale joint official law enforcement operation that would have stopped the villains without risk to the PCs was good for solid character point bonuses. Especially as the players were fully aware that doing so would lead to the PCs having to navigate some very deep political waters to avoid legal entanglements afterwards, but preferred this to law enforcement officers without their familiarity with the occult, high Will and magical protections having to be exposed to the swirling vortex of dark energy around the Aqueronte.

Also, 'Nonc' Morel doing all sorts of risky things in order to avoid killing anyone, including using magical means to try to have his Reluctant Killer Disadvantage influence the other PCs through their mental link (genius!), meant that they got bonus awards for having captured numerous NPCs that a more pragmatic approach would have killed by sniper fire.

And, ironically, the other three PCs doing diametrically opposing things to play out their respective Disadvantages to kill specific threats aboard the Aqueronte, which ended up causing the Bad Place to deteriorate into a full-fledged rift between worlds, also got them bonus points. Being willing to have their PCs have subtly different goals and very different personalities furthered adventure possibilities.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That works. I hadn't considered how Mana might interact with the Facade, but that works.

Yup. Which is nice for a GM as it cuts back on the things you need to remember from scene to scene.

Excellent.